Part 3

"You might have the common politeness to say thank you, I think," said Nellie, who was officiating at nursery tea in Meg's absence. "What a boor you are getting, John."

"Oh, go and hang yourself," he returned. He pushed his chair back from the table, and went out of the room with lowering brows.

Poppet slipped down from her chair.

"Sit down instantly, Poppet; do you think I'm going to allow you to behave like this?" Nellie cried. "If John has no more manners than a larrikin, you are not to follow his example. Sit down, I tell you, Poppet; _do_ you hear me?"

"Can't you see how white he is?" said the little girl, her lips trembling. "Nellie, I can't stay--no, I don't want pudding." She darted across the room and down the passage after him.

The boys' bedrooms opened on to a long landing with a high staircase window at the end that looked straight out to the river and the great stretch of gum trees on the Crown lands.

Bunty was standing staring out, his hands thrust in his pockets; the setting sun was on the stained window-panes, and his face looked ghastly in the red light.

"Was it very bad?" said the little, tender voice at his elbow.

He turned round, and looked at his young sister for a minute in silence.

"Look here, Poppet," he said, and his voice sounded strange and strangled; "I know I tell lies and do mean things--I can't help it sometimes, I think I was made so; but I haven't done this new thing they say I have--Poppet, I swear I haven't."

"I know you haven't," the loving voice said; "what is it, Bunty?"

He gave her a fleeting, grateful glance. "I can't tell you, old girl--you'll know soon enough,--every one thinks I have; it's no good me saying anything nothing's any good in the world." He leaned his forehead on the cold window-pane and choked something down in his throat. "To-morrow, Poppet, they'll say all sorts of things about me; but don't you believe them, old girl--will you?--whatever they say, Poppet--promise me."

"I pwomise you, Bunty, faithf'lly," the little girl said, an almost solemn light in her eyes. She could never remember Bunty quite like this before. There was a despairing note in his voice, and really the red sunset light made his face look dreadful.

"Give us a kiss, Poppet," he whispered, and put his face down on her little, rough, curly head.

The child burst into tears of excitement and fright--everything seemed so strange and unreal. Bunty had never asked her for a kiss before in his life. She clung to him sobbing, with her small, thin arms around his neck and her cheek against his. Both his arms were round her, he had lifted her up to him right off the ground, and his cheeks were almost as wet as hers.

There was a step, and he set her down again and turned away.

"Where are you going?" she asked half fearfully.

"To bed," he said gruffly. "My head aches. Good-night."

*CHAPTER V.*

*BETWEEN A DREAM AND A DREAM.*

"It isn't the thing you do, dear, It's the thing you leave undone, Which gives you a bit of heartache At the setting of the sun-- The loving touch of the hand, dear, The gentle and winsome tone, That you had no time nor thought for, With troubles enough of your own."

Such a troubled night poor little Poppet had. Twice she woke up with a stifled scream, and lay awake afterwards hot and trembling in the dark. The third time she slept, she dreamed Bunty had thrown a stone at the schoolmaster's house, which was all built of glass; she heard the crashing and splintering of it as it came down in a heap, forms, blackboards, boys, and masters, all flying in different directions. Then a great voice that sounded like thunder asked if John Woolcot had done this, and all the world seemed listening for the answer. And Bunty was standing near a great red window, with a frightened look on his face, and he said, "No, I never." Then there was a loud shouting and hissing, and a dozen hands caught hold of the boy and hurried him away.

"What are they going to do with him?" some one asked of a giant who was sitting peeling a cricket-ball as if it were an orange. And the giant, who had Bully Hawkins' face, laughed, and said, "They're putting him in the guillotine; listen to that snap--his head has just fallen off; I'm going to have it for a ball because he wouldn't scout!"

The snap that woke the poor dreaming child was the banging of the bedroom door.

Nell had just come in, gone to the glass, given her hair a few pats and light touches, and hurriedly slipped on her best bronze shoes,--it was nine o'clock, and some late visitors had come--men with gold buttons.

"Oh-h-h!" said the little sobbing figure, sitting up in bed. "Oh-h-h--oh-h--oh, _Nellie_!"

"Don't be silly, Poppet; go to sleep at once,"--the elder sister gave her a hasty pat. "Lie down, and don't be naughty; you've been eating apples again late, I expect, and it's made you dream,--there, I must go."

The child clung to her.

"Bunty!" she said,--"is he dead? did they take his head?--oh, Bunty!"

"You silly little thing, don't I tell you you've been dreaming!" Nellie laid her down impatiently and tucked the clothes round her. "There, go to sleep; I have to go down, there are visitors. I'll leave the candle if you like."

Poppet put her head under the clothes and sobbed hysterically; the little, narrow bed with its spring mattress was shaking.

"Oh!" said Nellie,--"oh dear, this _is_ tiresome! Poppet, do you want anything? Would you like a drink?--oh, I'm in such a hurry,--what is it, Poppet? What's the use of being silly, now? When a dream's gone, it's gone. Stop crying at once, or I shall be very angry, and go and leave you in the dark!"

The bed shook even more violently.

"M-M-Meg!" was the word that came with a choking sound from under the counterpane,--"oh, M-M-Meg!"

"All right, I'll send her if you'll be good,--not for a minute or two, because she's talking to some gentlemen, but as soon as I can whisper to her. Here, drink this water before I go, and stop sobbing. You're too big a girl to go on like this, Poppet."

Nellie's voice had a stern note in it,--she thought kindness would make her cry more, and there really was not time to argue with her.

Five, six, seven minutes slipped away after she had gone; then Meg came running lightly upstairs and into the room the child shared with Nellie.

"She's too excitable--I'll have to make her go to bed earlier," she thought, as she crossed over to the tossed bed. "Nightmare--poor little mite!"

But there was only a pillow and a tossed heap of clothes--the bed was empty!

"She's gone down for more light and company. How unkind of Nellie!" she said aloud, starting off in quest of her. She looked in the different bedrooms as she passed, then in the nursery, which was brightly lighted but deserted.

The boys' landing was in darkness; but at the end of it she caught a glimpse of something white outside Bunty's door.

"Poppet!" she cried, hurrying down. "Oh, Poppet, nothing on your feet, and only your nightgown!"

She picked her up in her arms, nine years old though she was.

But the child was nearly beside herself, and struggled back to the ground, beating with her small hands against the lower panels of the door.

"Bunty!" she said, "Bunty! Bunty! Can't you hear me, Bunty? Oh, Bunty!"

"John!" Meg called sharply, "answer at once!"

"What?" said Bunty's voice in its gruffest tone. "For goodness' sake leave me alone! What on earth do you want? Don't be an idiot, Poppet."

The very gruffness and crossness of the reply reassured the child--it was so unmistakably Buntyish. Her sobs grew less and less wild--she even permitted Meg to lift her up in her arms again.

"Good-night, Bunty," she said in a small voice with a pitiful hiccough at the end.

"Oh, good-night," he said.

And then Meg carried her off.

Such a tender, gentle, soothing Meg she was, even though some one was waiting impatiently in the drawing-room and the evening was almost over.

She took the child into her own room, and put her into her own bed with the pink rosebud hangings and pale pink mosquito nets that Poppet had always thought the prettiest things in the world.

And she bathed her face with lavender-water, and sprinkled the same refreshing stuff on the white, frilled pillows, and talked to her in a pleasant, matter-of-fact way that dispelled the horrors of the night entirely.

The little girl told her dream. She longed to pour all Bunty's troubles into this dear, big sister's ear! But that of course was forbidden.

One thing she did venture to say, as she lay cuddled up with her face luxuriously against Meg's soft breast.

"Dear Megsie, couldn't you be sweet and dear to Bunty too? Poor Bunty, everybody gets on to him."

"My pet, he won't let people be nice to him," said Meg in a troubled way.

"I don't mean kiss him or anything," the little girl said; "only don't call him 'John'--it's such an ugly name; and don't keep saying 'Don't!'; and don't let Nellie keep telling him he's dirty and clumsy,--please, dearest Megsie!"

Meg kissed her silently.

What a wise little child it was! What a dear little child! And oh, what a poor little child, for it had never in its life known a mother!

Her thoughts leapt back across the years to that dear, fading memory of her mother. She saw the bedroom, with the bright lights that seemed strangely painful in such a place.

"I want to see them all, John, please," the voice from the pillows had said when the Captain moved away to turn the gas down; "it can't hurt me now."

And they had gathered up close to the white pillows that gleamed with the loose, bright hair--all the little, frightened children,--herself, hardly thirteen; Pip in a sailor suit and his eyes red; little dear Judy with wild, bright eyes and trembling lips; Nellie with a headless doll clasped in her arms; Bunty in a holland pinafore stained with jam.

Nobody heeded the tiny baby that lay just in the hollow of mother's arm,--what was a baby, even one almost new to them all, when mother was dying?

But the next day, when all was over, and every one was tired of crying and feeling the world had stopped for them for ever, the strange nurse brought in the little lonely baby and gave it to Meg to nurse, because she was the eldest.

"You'll have to be its mother now, little miss," she said, as she laid it in all its long, many clothes in Meg's frightened arms.

Its mother!

The scene came vividly before Meg's eyes to-night, as she sat with the poor child close in her arms.

She bent her head in an agony of shame and sorrow.

How she had failed! how she had neglected, scolded, grown impatient with, laughed at, her little trust! Loved her, of course; but life was such a confusing, busy, quarrelling, pleasure-seeking kind of thing at Misrule, and she had forgotten so often, and been so taken up with her own affairs, that she had not had time to "be a mother" to her little sister.

"Oh, Poppet!" she said, in a voice full of passionate regret; and Poppet slipped her dear, thin little arms around her neck and clung closer, as if she almost knew what the trouble was.

But presently the child fell asleep, and Meg stayed there, motionless, on the bed edge, looking down at the small, flushed cheeks, where the black lashes lay still heavy and wet.

There was a strange look of Judy about the little face to-night, and altogether it made Meg forget the visitors downstairs, Alan, Nell's impatience, everything but the little dead mother and the knowledge that her place was not well filled. She thought of Bunty, sullen, hard, untruthful, and growing more so every day--Bunty, whose nature no one but Poppet had a key to, and even hers would not always turn.

If the little mother had lived, he would have been very different. Poor lad! perhaps he was unhappy too--he had been even more gloomy and silent than usual these last few days; she would go to him now, and try to get into his confidence by degrees.

She slipped Poppet's little warm hand out of her own and put it softly on the pillow.

"Well, this _is_ too bad of you," said Nellie, putting her head into the door. "You've no regard for appearances, really, Meg. It's an hour since you left the room, and I've been making excuses for you all the time. Why don't you come down? There's only Esther and me to entertain them all, and Alan Courtney's been looking at the photograph album for half an hour, and not spoken a word. You are too bad. Sitting here with Poppet all this time--she's asleep too. Talk about spoiling the children!"

Meg got up, her eyelashes wet, her face very sweet in its new gravity.

"I sha'n't come down again," she said in a low tone. "Tell them Poppet was not well, and I had to stay with her; indeed, I cannot come, Nellie."

Nellie glanced at her impatiently; she did not understand the strange, moved look on her sister's face--it had been unclouded and laughing an hour ago; how could she guess she had been holding hands with the dead all this little while?

Besides, her conscience reproached her about poor little Poppet, and it made her feel irritable.

"I never saw any one like you for moods, Meg," she said crossly. "A minute ago you were laughing and talking to Alan Courtney, and now you're looking like a funeral hearse; and I think it's very rude not to come down and say good-night. They asked me to sing the 'Venetian Boat Song' too, and you know I can't play my own accompaniment."

"Dear Nell, another night," Meg whispered; "and hush, you will disturb Poppet. Go down again yourself now, or Esther will be vexed. Wish them good-night for me; I have to speak to Jo--Bunty."

Nellie's face still looked vexed. She had practised her somewhat difficult song, and was ambitious to sing it since they all pressed her so.

"I can see Alan thinks it strange of you vanishing like that," she said grumblingly. "He told me to be sure to make you come down again."

Then Meg blushed--a beautiful, warm, tender blush that crept right up to the little straying curls on her forehead. They had been talking about books, she and Alan, before she came upstairs; and in a sudden fit of petulance with herself she had said she was "a stupid, ignorant thing, and would not talk to him about books again, because she knew he was laughing at her for knowing so little."

And oh! what was it his eyes had said when they flashed that one quick, eager look into hers? what was it that softly breathed "Meg" had meant?

Nellie had whispered in her ear the next second, "Poppet's crying herself nearly into a fit for you; can you go to her for a minute?"

It seemed almost a week ago now since she had gone. In some indefinable way she seemed to have grown older in that one hour, to have got away from all these things that had engrossed her before.

"Come on; why _shouldn't_ you?" Nell said persuasively, quick to take advantage of that sudden blush.

Just a moment Meg hesitated,--it would be very sweet to go down to the room again and lose this heavy-heartedness in "the delight of happy laughter, the delight of low replies."

But poor, misunderstood Bunty whom they all "got on to"--her neglected duty! Had she any right to be enjoying herself just now, any right to chase away these new feelings?

She turned away with a sudden lifting of head.

"No, I am not coming; say good-night for me."

"Stay away then," said Nellie in exasperation. So Meg went down the landing once more to the boys' end.

"Bunty," she said, knocking softly, "I want to come in; may I?"

There was an impatient grunt inside.

"What on earth do you want? Can't you give a fellow a bit of peace? What are you after now? Yes, I've put my dirty socks in the linen basket."

"It isn't that, Bunty; I only want to talk to you for a little." Meg's voice was very even and patient.

But "Blow being talked to!" was Bunty's grateful and polite reply. He was weary of sisterly "talkings."

"I'm not going to lecture you or anything like that, Bunty. I _wish_ you'd open the door. What have you fastened yourself in for?" Meg beat a little tattoo on the wood and rattled the handle.

"What a nuisance you are, Meg; why on earth can't you go away and let a fellow be quiet? I'm not going to open the door, so there." His voice sounded from the bed across the room; he had not even attempted to come near the door.

"Oh, very well," said Meg, seeing it was useless, to-night, at least, with that barrier of pine between them.

"Good-night, old fellow. I don't see why you should be so grumpy with me."

"I'll talk to him to-morrow," she said, as she went downstairs with a free heart to the drawing-room again.

But, alas! to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow!

*CHAPTER VI*

*TO-MORROW.*

"What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted."

They did not find it out till nearly nine o'clock.

Bunty was frequently late for his breakfast, so no one remarked upon his absence this particular morning. Only Meg kept his coffee hot, and sent his chop back to the kitchen to be put in the oven--an unusual piece of consideration, for she used to say he deserved everything to be cold and greasy if he got up so late.

But Nellie, who was cutting the sandwiches as usual for his school lunch, cried out for him. "I can't find John's lunch serviette anywhere," she said, putting in a generous supply of fat beef. "I ask him every day to leave it out of his bag. What a tiresome boy he is! I won't give him another one this morning; he had one yesterday."

"Poppet, go and tell John he'll be late for school," Meg said. "Tell him it's a quarter to nine--he won't have time to eat his breakfast." Poppet departed, her own bright merry self again; the events of last night had vanished from her with her dreams.

But she came back with a half-startled face. "He's not there, Meg; his hat's gone too, and his school-bag. I 'spect he got something in the pantry and went early; perhaps there is something on at school; and--and--I think he must have made his bed himself, because--it--it's made."

She looked half pitifully, half eagerly at Meg, as if asking for a denial of her horrible suspicions. "Come and look," she said.

Meg got up and followed her; Nellie laid down the breadknife and went too,--it was beyond credence that Bunty should be up early and make his own bed. Peter and Essie brought up the rear, of course.

"It--it's very strange," Meg said, her face quite pale as she looked round the room. The bed had evidently not been slept in, for no boy could have made it look as neat as it did; it was just as Martha had left it yesterday morning. There was a suit missing--not his best one, but the one he wore alternate weeks at school--a couple of shirts too, and some socks and collars. Nellie darted to his little red post-office money-box; it had been prised open--he had lost the key long since--and was empty.

"He had two and fourpenth ha'penny in it," said Peter, "cauth I athked him one day."

"He's run away," said Nellie. "Oh, the bad, wicked boy!"

"Hush," said Meg. She feared for the effect the blow would have on Poppet, and caught the child's hand and drew her to her side.

"Run away!" repeated Poppet.

Every vestige of colour had dropped out of her face; it wore a strained, unchildlike look, and her eyes were heavy.

Meg drew her closer still and stroked her hair.

"Perhaps it's a mistake, dear. Oh, he's only gone to school, or camping, or something, and didn't tell us; there's no need to trouble," she said. But she felt terribly uneasy.

Poppet did not look up. She was thinking of the red-stained window and the kiss last night--thinking of the school troubles, and the boy's strange behaviour, and hints at worse.

There was a loud, angry voice calling from the nursery, and every one trooped back in amaze. What was the Captain doing in their own special room at breakfast-time?

Esther was there, too, with horrified eyes, and Pip with a look of fierce disgust on his face.

How red their father's face was! how his moustache bristled! Peter shrank close up behind Meg, and wondered if it was about yesterday's lessons.

"Father," Meg said, white to the lips, "what _is_ the matter? Esther, can't you speak? Oh, Pip, what is it?"

"Matter!" shouted her father; "I'm disgraced--we're all disgraced. Where is he? Heavens! I'll cut the skin off his back! Peter, get my horsewhip; he's no son of mine! I'll turn him off--I'll have him locked up. Where is he? where is the young thief? Only let me get hold of him. Bring him here at once, Pip. Where's that horsewhip, Peter?"

"He's run away, we think," Nellie said in a trembling voice; and there was a great silence for two minutes, broken only by a very deep breath from Poppet. Then Meg's voice was heard.

"What has he done?" she said, "because--because--oh, indeed, I believe we have all been misunderstanding the poor boy."

"Misunderstanding!" echoed her father, with almost a snort of anger. "Read that, miss, and don't talk nonsense!"

He passed her a letter that had just been brought him, and Meg read it and grew pale; Nellie read it and crimsoned; Poppet picked it up in her little shaking hands and looked piteously from one to the other,--that black, thick writing--oh, what was it all about?

Meg told her afterwards, for it was no use trying to put the child off, and indeed it seemed she knew more than they did.

The letter was from the head master. It stated everything that Bunty had confessed to Poppet about the broken window and glass cases, about the lie he had told when taxed with it. But then the terrible part came. On the desk five sovereigns were lying in a little heap when the master was called out of the room; it was one of the boys' fees, and the master was in the act of entering the amount in the book when he was sent for. He was detained a quarter of an hour, and when he returned the window and the glass cases were broken, and the money had gone!

Now there was no one on the top floor at all during the time, it seemed--that was the mystery that had puzzled every one. But then it came out that Hawkins, who was waiting in Mr. Burnham's own room for his caning, had seen John Woolcot come creeping down the stairs just after the crash, with a white face and the cricket-ball in his hand. Woolcot, too, when he found his lie of no avail, had confessed to the smashing, but denied having taken the money. The head master regretted having to perform such a painful duty as communicating the intelligence to his father; but there seemed no doubt that the boy had committed the theft, and under the circumstances perhaps it would be wiser if he were removed from the school.

No wonder the Captain raved and stormed! no wonder Esther and the elder girls looked pale and horrified, and Pip disgusted beyond words! He was guilty--there was no doubt of it in their minds. The fact of his running away was sufficient proof of it; and they all remembered his strange behaviour yesterday. It was in vain poor little Poppet protested again and again and again that "he didn't do it--oh, indeed he didn't do it. Yes, he had broken the glass; and yes, he had told a lie; but oh, indeed he had not stolen."

"How do you know, miss?" her father said sharply; "what proof have you that he didn't?"

"He told me he didn't," said the poor little mite. "Oh, he _said_ he didn't,--oh, why won't you believe it? Meg, I tell you he _said_ he didn't."

But even Meg could not believe, so lightly was Bunty's word held amongst them.

For the first day the Captain was too angry even to attempt to find traces of his son. He declared he would never own him again, never have him inside his doors.